


Better Days

by givemeunicorns



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, M/M, Multi, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 22:25:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3357497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They pile into Sam's car on a foggy Sunday morning, and hit the road as the sun climbed over the horizon. They kept off the interstate, stopped at mom and pop gas stations with a map spread out on the hood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Days

**Author's Note:**

> written for the marvel polyamory minibang!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and make no money from this

He comes awake in slow degrees, Steve's skin warm under his fingers, Sam's breath soft and even against the back of his neck. He lays there for a long time, listening to them breath in the dark.

The hotel room smells like old must and cigarette smoke, like carpet and curtain that have been there since the seventies. Still, it's not the shittiest place he's ever spent the night in and the bed is passible, and large enough to fit all three of them. It's the first place in a while that they haven't just given up and slept on the floor.

The road trip was Sam's idea, seeing the way they all scratched at their skin. They made a list, lying in bed and talking about all the places they wanted to see. The Painted Desert, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Ocean. They pile into Sam's car on a foggy Sunday morning, and hit the road as the sun climbed over the horizon. They kept off the interstate, stopped at mom and pop gas stations with a map spread out on the hood.

They're driving through West Virginia, the mountains smokey and the trees wild an Bucky, in the back seat felt a tugging in his soul. He rolled down the window, fingers curling on the door frame as he pulled himself out. Seated on the window edge, looking down the empty, winding highway, the trees older than even him, something settled in his soul. He closed his eyes and let the wind pull at him, and breathed in wet green smell of growing things. When he finally slid back into his seat, he saw Sam's reflection smiling back at him. Steve's hand was out the window, fingers dancing through the air.

Sharing a bed isn't a new thing, they've been doing it since those early days when Bucky craved human contact like a drug. But the first time they sleep together is in New Orleans, the smell of ivy and the old city blowing in from the windows.

It frightens Bucky, the intensity of it, of hands and lips and too hot skin. Sam's pressed against his back, fucking him with a mix of brutality and gentility that takes him apart so completely. Steve strokes his face, kissing him, breathing gentle words against his skin. It's filthy and raw and real and terrifying. Part of him remembers it, what it was like to be touched in such a way, to be so exposed and vulnerable, but he locked that longing away for so long the idea of letting it out, let himself have it, shook him apart. They were gentle with him, impossibly so, and he unraveled in their hands like he was made for it. Steve is slow and steady against him when he takes him, while his hands clutch as Sam, who's smiling so close to him their noses touch. They drag the pleasure out of him, out of each other, until they're too exhausted to move. Laying in a tangle of streets and sweat slick bodies, Steve starts laughing and the other's follow suit. The strange cosmic hilarity of every thing they've been through, how much they've lost, how much they've suffered, only to end up having almost embarrassingly wild sex in a run down motel some where in the french quarter. Some how, against all odds, they've ended up happy and some semblance of whole.

Some nights they take him apart, some nights its too much, and he lays beside them, watches them make love and smile, dragging his fingers down their skin. Either way, for the first time since he can remember, he felt content. Steve fills a familiar space in Bucky's soul, a place Steve was always meant to be. He files up the blank stretches in memory, adds colors to emotions that have no event attached to them. Steve has always been there, even when he didn't know Steve's face or his name, even when Steve was a mission, or on object of fear, because knowing Steve's name meant punishment. Sam though, Sam fills in the blank places in Bucky's heart and mind. He's new and real, there is no prior knowledge, no expectations. Sam takes Bucky the same way he sees everything, as he is. Sam is the honesty in the truest sense, ready to tell Bucky the truths he may not want to hear, the ones Steve thinks he's protecting him from. Sam understands what it's like to lose and to hurt, but he knows how to pull himself out of the ashes in a way that Steve and Bucky are both still learning. He's grounded in his time, he has a family and connections. He keeps Bucky in present, because he's their future.

The desert cleanses Bucky's in a way nothing else can. It's vast and endless, beautiful in it's barrenness. The Painted Desert lights up Bucky's soul like a fire, but seeing the look of childish wonder on Steve's face means the world to him. The park at an outlook and Steve sits on the hood, trying the sharp lines of desert landscape until his hands are smudged with pencil marks. That night, they drive out away from the neon lights of the little town they stop in for the night, out down the highway, and lay on the roof of Sam's car, looking at the stars. Sam settles between them and sighs, like he's been waiting to see this his entire life. The sky has always been Sam's freedom, and while he hated the war, he misses the open darkness of a midnight sky.

They talk until the sky turns pale, and then bleeds into the pinks and reds of early dawn. They talk about the things that hurt, like Riley and Steve's mom and Bucky's sisters, and Peggy and the drk times when Zola first took Bucky and he had moments of knowing who he was and what had happened to him. They talk about good things too, Sam's sister and her kids, about Natasha and Clint and how they should just get platonic married already. They talk about Tony's ego, even though his house _is_ pretty cool, and how Pepper and Rhoney must be actual saints. They talk about Thor's biceps and Jane who Sam most certainly not a small crush on thank you very much. Bucky talks about the drinking games Darcy taught him and they laugh about the time Steve tried to arm wrestle Sif. They talk about Bruce and Betty and how much better he seems since she's been back in his life. They talk about things they want and the things their waiting for, because the world is scary, but right now the future seems bright and so beautifully possible. 

The fall into bed some time right before daylight. Sam moves in Bucky while Steve moves in Sam. It's slow, all hushed gaps and teeth and tongues because the walls are paper thin and there is a family of four sleeping the nest room over. It's over to soon, Bucky's body shuttering apart until he see's stars. They sleep without nightmares, in a tangled pile of limbs, graceless and too big for the bed they're piled into. 

Laying there in the early morning, Bucky breathes. Soon they'll have to go back to the real world, of fighting and defending the world that he sometimes wonders is worth saving. But right now, everything is warm, everything is good. 

 


End file.
